Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1887-01-12
uedera Nsvels.

N tQv QUEEN 0AyN Ouv IDl8ut ICOk IOl
soma pleasure ID her novel reading
Novels were not then the deep physica
studies, the moral forces, the concealed
sermons they are now, and however
narrowing they we're in tho beginning
md middle parts, ono always knew
they'd turn ont right, and according t.
+, wish in the end. No matter what came
between, tho hero was sure to marry
the heroine in the last chapter the
cruel father, il there was cruel father
was sure to relent, the culprits be for
given, and oil be smiles and joy II
riches took to themselves wings in the
first few pages, to tly away, in the last
few they took wings to return, and one
always knew beforehand that it would
be SO. If she grew too unhappy ovel
the woes and sorrows in the middle oil
the book, she hnd only to turn to the
last and all was:
Hon =. riches, msrriare blessing.
l. ng con inuance and tncreasin.."
But now all is changed, we are tossed
on sea of uncertainty from first to
last. we know not il virtue will be re.
warded and evil punished, or ii good
ness will snccumb and vice be triumph
ant, or If, indeed, the cruel author may
not Stay all the dramatic persona in
the finale and leave nothing for our
agonized patience but pool OF gore, or
in milder form, cluster of grassy
graves. The fiction world is turned
topsy-turvy. In the desire to be true
to life, to paint things as they are and
not merely AZ they should be, in the
wish to hold the mirror mp to nature,
the realists OF to-day make the novel
often terrible thing. thing to he
avoided as the nightshade, or deadly
henbane. They take one clear through
the mirror and show the quicksilver on
the back.
While tho trials and fluctuations OF
real life may be strewn over q long Pc
Rod OF years, the novelist gathers them
all in lump, as it were, and you may
take oil the nauseousness at single
dose. The sorrows of ten years you
may oftentimes read, and in some sort
experience, in as many hours
1t is true this may also apply to the
illusory joys OF novels but one does
not object to overdoses of JOY. One
can stand pretty large draughts, or
quaffs Of happiness. As one longs I'M
consciously for love and happiness in
real life, SO one hopes unccnsciously for
it in the books she picks up. II she
is to find there only the sorrows and
tears she finds also in the world about
her. where is to be her help and es-
cape? What city OF refuge is there
left for the bleeding heart, tho wounded
soul?
A friend says she almost breads to
read a new book now for fear it will
not turn ont we'll, and she will be made
more sad than before the reading, de-
claring she would almost rather take up
one whose ending she knows already
from previous reading. Let us think
of this, let us pray our friends, the
novelists, to write more OF life as it
shoul.l be, life the ideal, ana less of
life the real. We all have real burdens
OF our own to carry, heavy bona fide
burdens: why then should we be loaded
with imaginary ones also? ! plead for
happier novels. II we must have
Books in the running brooks" let M
have the sparkle and cheer as we'll.
Don't let it be all fret and moan and
trouble. Detroit Free Press.